1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of networked media delivery systems, and more particularly, to a method and system for providing targeted advertisements to specific consumers.
2. Background of the Invention
Traditionally, the preferred method of advertising has been to broadcast an advertisement to a large audience via mass media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. This mass media advertising strategy seeks to reach the most number of viewers to increase the odds of contacting the ones most likely to purchase the advertised product or service. Although a large viewing audience may see the advertisement, advertisers understand that only a small percentage of that audience has a real interest in purchasing the advertised product or service. To some extent, advertisers can increase the probability of reaching purchasing consumers by creating advertisements that appeal to those potential consumers and broadcasting the advertisements in media that those same consumers are most likely to view. However, even using a popular medium to a typical potential consumer, advertisers will exclude potential consumers that do not use the medium and will include viewers of that medium who have no desire to purchase the product or service. Because of this underinclusion and overinclusion, advertisers necessarily waste at least a portion of their budgets on consumers who are not in the market to buy their product or service.
To offset this unnecessary spending, advertisers continually strive to narrow advertising efforts to a targeted purchasing audience. As briefly stated above, one targeting method distributes advertisements in media content that attract demographic groups likely to purchase the advertised product or service. For example, television shows often appeal to a particular type of audience, marked perhaps by age, income, or education. Usually, the specific sponsors of the shows sell products that appeal to the same particular audience. Similarly, in print media, advertisers choose magazines and newspapers with the content, style, and geographic coverage that attract readers likely to be interested in the advertised products or services.
In another targeting method, advertisers pay the mass media to deliver advertisements as a part of the media content. This method embeds the advertisement in the media content such that the viewer must view the advertisement to view the media content. For example, some radio and television programs incorporate advertising pitches into the program commentary or discussions. Other targeting techniques display advertisements concurrently with the media content, such as with corporate sponsored scoreboard icons in the corner of a television screen, or with logos incorporated into uniforms or equipment (e.g., race cars) that are repeatedly shown during a sports event broadcast. Another embedded advertising technique has film actors or actresses that use the advertiser's products during their acting.
Although the targeting techniques described above focus on a smaller consumer audience, the overinclusion and underinclusion inherent in mass media advertising remain their principal drawbacks. In each targeting strategy, advertisers waste money by reaching people who are not interested in the product or service or by excluding those people who are interested. Because these techniques assess consumer interest on the larger scale of program audiences instead of on an individual viewer basis, the techniques will always suffer from the squandered advertising dollars associated with overinclusion and underinclusion.
To address the drawbacks to mass media, advertisers sometimes use direct mailings and niche print media to reach targeted consumer audiences. Direct mailings and niche magazines focus on specific potential purchasers or classes of purchasers. For example, a pharmaceutical company can use targeted mailings to deliver its advertising materials directly to doctors practicing the particular type of medicine to which the advertised drug applies. As another example, boat manufacturers can advertise in a small number of magazines directed to boating enthusiasts. While these targeted print advertisements increase the efficiency of advertising efforts, they lack the powerful and influential images and sounds that a medium such as television can deliver. Thus, targeted print advertisements have only limited application and impact.
Recognizing the drawbacks to mass media and targeted print advertisements, advertisers have turned to the internet to isolate potential consumers and increase the power of their advertising dollars. On the internet, a user controls the content she views by navigating the worldwide web and accessing web pages and web advertisements. Using software, advertisers can intelligently monitor these user viewing selections, analyze viewing patterns, and deliver advertisements suiting the tastes and interests of the user. For example, if a user has repeatedly chosen to view internet advertisements for camping equipment, the software will retrieve all camping equipment advertisements that subscribe to the advertising plan and deliver them to the user. In addition, the software can retrieve advertisements for related products, such as hiking gear, and display those advertisements to the user as well. U.S. Pat. No. 5,948,061 discloses a method of delivering, targeting, and measuring advertising over networks that is representative of these types of internet targeted advertisements.
Although these internet targeted advertisements marginally increase the spending power of the advertising dollar, they still present notable disadvantages. First, despite a growing popularity, the internet has far fewer users than traditional media such as newspapers or television. The cost of purchasing a computer and maintaining internet access will continue to exclude potential consumers. In addition, many consumers, especially those of older generations, are intimidated by the seemingly complex internet technology and prefer the more familiar medium of television.
In addition to limited consumer audiences, bandwidth restrictions limit data transmission speed and hamper the quality and impact of targeted internet advertisements. Most internet users are thoroughly familiar with the long delays associated with downloading graphical information, especially video clips or other animation. These delays limit the types of advertisements that can be displayed and dampen the impact an advertisement can have on a user. Often, the consumer clicks through the web page without viewing the advertisement or occupies the downloading time with other activities such as watching television or reading.
Targeted internet advertising also has limited data from which to determine a customer profile. To collect data, the targeted internet advertising systems simply record user selections of internet advertisements, note words typed when searching web content, or read user information such as geographic location, domain type (e.g., commercial, education or government), and perhaps standard industry codes (SICs), which indicate such user characteristics as employer and type of employer. To target the advertising, the internet systems tend to deliver advertisements, e.g., banner advertisements, related to a user's previous advertisement selections or search terms without regard to the current and changing tastes of the user. In relying on previous advertisement selections or search terms, these internet systems miss the opportunity to display the types of advertisements that the user would be interested in, but has not yet seen or clicked through. Instead of being proactive and assessing a customer's tastes and delivering new, pertinent advertisements, these internet systems simply react to previous advertisement selections and deliver related advertisements.